If you bought your computer with Windows Vista pre-installed, you most likely don't have a regular Windows Vista repair disc. What you do have is some crappy disc from the manufacturer that totally wipes your computer back to factory settings. What if you just want to run Startup repair off the Vista install cd without losing all your settings?
It turns out that Microsoft is going to let you create your own Vista repair disc when Service Pack 1 comes out in a month or so. If you can't wait that long, the nice people over at Neosmart have created their own Vista Repair Disc available for download. (32-bit only)
The file is an ISO image file… if you are familiar then skip to the link, otherwise we've also got instructions on how to create a CD from the ISO file.
Burn Vista Recovery Disc ISO to CD
You may already have a tool to do this such as Nero, but the best tool available for burning ISOs is ImgBurn, a freeware utility that does nothing else but burn ISO images, and it does it well.
Open up ImgBurn, and then click on the "Browse for a file" button, selecting the file you downloaded from Neosmart.
Put a blank CD into the drive, and then click the big Write button.
That's about all there is to it… you now have your very own Vista Recovery CD.